Zoya Hussain on Mukkabaaz: “My character symbolizes women’s voice”

Actress Zoya Hussain, who is playing the character of a mute girl in the upcoming film Mukkabaaz, said the speaking disability of her character is somewhere symbolic of the state of women in a patriarchal society.

The debutant actress learnt sign language for the film. Zoya shares that she treated her character Sunaina in a humane way rather than with sympathy. “Though my character is mute, she is not seeking sympathy from anyone. She is a young, confident and self-sufficient girl who holds a strong opinion on everything. Her speaking disability is somewhere symbolic of women’s voice in our society, where women are not allowed to express their opinion in a patriarchal system,” Zoya told.

She said she had a great experience of learning sign language from Sangeeta Gala, who has worked in various films like Black and Barfi and for training actors.

“During the whole process of learning it, I also interacted with many mute people and understood how severe the problem is. Since Sangeeta works with a lot of children who are mute, I show how they suffer. Since their parents cannot teach them in any language and they struggle to express themselves from their very childhood, they harm themselves out of frustration. It is heartbreaking to see,” said Zoya.

Born and brought up in Delhi, Zoya worked as a theatre actress for quite some time before packing her bags for Mumbai to explore the medium of cinema.

Directed by Anurag Kashyap, Mukkabaaz is in cinemas this Friday, 12 January 2018.